JOURNALIST: I’ll just ask the Minister for Communications, when I was just speaking to the kids, what kept coming up was YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. YouTube not necessarily is in the same boat as Snapchat or TikTok or- suggests that it has the same harm. So why is YouTube being included in on this ban?

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS, ANIKA WELLS: One of the first things I did when I became the Minister for Communications and inherited this reform to deliver, was take the advice of the eSafety Commissioner about YouTube. So YouTube is where the vast majority of harms being experienced by 13 to 16-year-olds in Australia were located. That's based on research that she had done at the eSafety Commission, which is Australia's independent regulator. We were actually the first in the world to create a shop front in eSafety, an independent regulator, 10 years ago. This is their bread and butter work. They look at platforms and work with them week in, week out, not just when they're delivering a world-leading reform.

The harms on YouTube were too big for us to ignore. And even talking to students today, that is, I think, based on the answers I got, the number one place that people are going. We aren't unreasonable about the utility of the internet. We understand that there is great use, people get a lot of pleasure out of it, and that's why people will still be able to access YouTube Kids. A particular student was talking about Minecraft and using strategies, learning ways to improve the experience on Minecraft through YouTube. That should be available through YouTube Kids. YouTube Kids with far greater and enhanced safety features is not on the ban list for 10 December. Also, you can access YouTube in a logged out state to specifically address how classrooms use YouTube these days. Often you'll get a link to Numberblocks or something, depending on what grade you're in. Your teacher can still send that link home and you can still access it in a logged out state. But what we're going after, through logins is the algorithm, the rabbit holes that you disappear down, the way that the things that you click through give your data and allow them to insidiously advertise to you, which has led to significantly increased mental health threats and deteriorating mental health in our teens.

JOURNALIST: Minister, where are these kids going to go now that they can't use Instagram, Snapchat? How do we stop them from jumping onto other platforms like Lemon8, for example, which is a platform not included in the ban? How do you stop them from replicating similar activities on different platforms?

WELLS: So something the eSafety Commissioner and I are looking at are migratory patterns. So that's to say if we find that because they've been logged out of Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, what have you, they end up on Lemon8, then we will look at whether the harm has transferred there and whether we need to add them to the list. We're going to have more to say about Lemon8 this week, so stay tuned. But I've also made the point, LinkedIn is currently an exempted platform because of professional networking. If everybody ends up on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn becomes a place where there is online bullying, predatory algorithms, targeting of 13 to 16-year-olds in a way that is deteriorating their mental and physical health, then we will go after LinkedIn. And that's why all platforms are on notice. We have to be agile and dynamic, because that's what big tech is.

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] … is that going to be to sort of control these new apps when they come through?

WELLS: It’s a task we thoroughly embrace. We are taking on big tech and we will not be flinching in the face of any intimidation, any threats. You'll see that we're off to the High Court and we'll be defending this law in the High Court. Of course, people with ulterior motives are going to throw down the kitchen sink and try to strike this down or water this down so that, as the Premier has been saying, they can continue to harvest data and make their billions of dollars off Australians in an unfettered fashion, as they have had the luxury of doing for more than 10 to 15 years now. So the eSafety Commissioner, this is her bread and butter work, she will continue to work with the platforms, we will continue to track how this works. We've got a two-year survey kicking off alongside 10 December to monitor the impact this is having and where we will need to act. And should any particular platform like Lemon8, like LinkedIn become the new source, I will not hesitate to act.

JOURNALIST: Where is the limit though? ChatGPT now has an erotica section, for example. How do you stop children finding themselves in other bad places?

WELLS: The eSafety Commissioner has been doing work on AI bots even as recently as several weeks ago. You would have seen a couple of months ago, I announced that we're going to ban nudify apps. I hope that nobody has had this experience here, but we're told that one out of every 23 Australian kids in some format has had an experience with nudify apps, where, through AI, you can take any innocent photo and make somebody so embarrassed, so shamed, that they have significant mental health events. And I’ve got, unfortunately, too much data about that. So where AI is evolving, we will step in. I think nudify apps are a good example of where we've done that already, and we will continue to do it.

JOURNALIST: If you admit that there are these strong benefits to platforms like YouTube and TikTok in education, why haven't you gone after big tech? Why do the 16-year-olds below have to suffer every time they try and use it? Why can't the big tech just clean up their act?

WELLS: I'm glad you asked me. We are going after big tech. The Albanese Government has committed to a Digital Duty of Care. We have just opened consultation on that, and I think the discussion and the emotional discourse we're having around the under-16 delay is a really good opportunity for people to make submissions about what a Digital Duty of Care in this country should look like. That is to say, what do the platforms that seek to operate on our shores, make their money off our data, what do they owe to us as Australians? What is their duty of care to us as Australians? So that Digital Duty of Care will start to pick up what you're talking about, because this isn't a one-off law designed to punish teens. This is a holistic approach to online safety that, as the Premier has said, is designed to pick up the fact that this has been the wild, wild west for far too long.

JOURNALIST: Why is it banning kids first and then looking for duty of care? Why wasn't that the other way around?

WELLS: Well, I’ve already said that we have announced that we'll be banning nudify apps. We've taken action on AI bots. The eSafety Commissioner spoke at National Press Club about the industry codes, where traditional industry has self-regulated, she works with them to do that. The industry standards that are now out, they're all meant to comply with.

But I guess manifestly, and this may be anecdata that you've experienced yourself, they have had 10, 15, 20 years to regulate themselves, to make them safe online. They haven't chosen to do it so they were going to make it the law.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]…  they’re saying that people will probably find ways around this [indistinct] to stop them going down that path.

WELLS: In just the same way that we have a law that under 18s aren't allowed to drink alcohol, I suspect there will be under 18s who find a way to drink alcohol today and probably that their parents will have facilitated that for them in some way. This is going to look untidy. It's a huge cultural reform. All big, important reforms look untidy as they pass. Just because there are under 18s who will drink alcohol today doesn't mean that it's not a good, important law that we have that you cannot drink under 18. This is about creating cultural change, and yeah, there's recalcitrance. There's people that aren't happy about this. Look, that's their right. I accept that. I've also had teens come to me and say, I'm really glad this is happening because I would like to get off social media, but I don't feel like that's possible when everyone else is on there, that would make me the outlier. Whereas we are creating a rule that everybody's off it, and the people that get around it, they will be the outliers.

JOURNALIST: The High Court challenge, in what capacity will you seek to be part of it?

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN PREMIER PETER MALINAUSKAS: So the Solicitor-General will seek for the South Australian Government to be heard on that. We have an interest in the High Court challenge failing. The law that has been passed by the Commonwealth enjoys the total unqualified support of the South Australian Government, and we will seek to be heard as part of that challenge. I will note that there are, of course, some who don't support this degree of regulation. Just think about the [indistinct] a moment. Think about the counterfactual here.

You've got people like Alex Antic, who runs the Liberal Party in in South Australia saying, no, they don't support the laws, they should be repealed, we should allow social media companies to do whatever they like, however they like with young people. I mean, that's- I mean, we've got very little regulation on social media platforms in this country as we see around the world. This is a law that seeks to protect young people and Alex Antic is supporting this repeal.

Now, then in the High Court you see similar challenges. What we want to see is a very clear message that the South Australian Government has an interest in these laws because they are about protecting young people. That's what is at stake here. It goes to one of your questions, Gus. Why put the social media age limit in place, and why do it quickly and do it first? Because the need is urgent.

We know that every single day that goes by where the social media platforms that are able to operate unwillingly is another day where Australian kids are being done harm. And wherever you see children being done harm, you've got to have a sense of urgency to act decisively and clearly. And if someone wants to set up the plate, take it to the High Court, bring them on, we're ready to go. The Solicitor-General will support the Commonwealth in its activities and we intend to be heard.

JOURNALIST: Just on another matter, there's been some talk about the Liberal policy over the Voice over the last couple of days…

MALINAUSKAS: [Interrupts] I can’t understand what the policy is, because it seems to change. We've got three different positions. We've got a position that was given to The Australian, we’ve got a position that was given to 5AA radio, and we've got a position that was given to ABC Radio. So, if you can distil what their position is, I'm happy to respond to it.

JOURNALIST: Would your government take any changes, or are you looking at any tweaks to the Voice, or would you keep it as it is going into the election?

MALINAUSKAS: Well, we're always hoping to improve. This is a new model. We think it's always serving a purpose. It's doing its work thoughtfully, in a considered, non-intrusive way. I think the speeches that we've seen in the Parliament, of which there have been two, have been quite sensible in their nature and pragmatic, but also principled. And we [indistinct], we welcome it. Much of the work that happens is behind the scenes, whether the Voice is [inaudible]… on a range of different issues, there’s material for them. Sometimes that advice is taken up, other times it isn't. It is only an advisory body, but one that we think is important. We think the advisory body should be able to provide members of the government, the executive level, but also members of the parliament, their thoughts. And that is largely costless.

But that's not to say that there shouldn't be any changes in the future or [indistinct], but I just- you know, I don't understand what the Liberal Party's position is here. They're saying they're repealing it, they're saying they're keeping it, they're saying reforming it, they're saying they're making it smaller, they're saying make it bigger and better. So for the life of me, I can't work out what their position is, but that's there for them to explain.

JOURNALIST: And just one last one on Northern Water. The weekend you announced Mullaquana as the site. In 2024, Infrastructure SA recommended Cape Hardy as their preferred site. Why haven't you [indistinct]-

MALINAUSKAS: [Interrupts] Well, there's been a lot of work that has been done over the course of the last couple of years, assessing the various options and the size, lots of engineering. All the engineering is quite complex to make sure that we get it right. There's the environmental considerations, there's the geo-tech, there's the length of the pipelines that are being linked to the discharge. One of the challenges with Cape Hardy is the- what's the word, it's escaping me. The [indistinct] change in relation to the geography informs the cost of the infrastructure. So when all of these things were assessed- topography is the word I’m looking for. When all of these things were assessed, a lot of detail on the Mullaquana site comes up- trumps it, hence the decision to be made.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]… was talking to us about the Cape Hardy site, and he's sort of gone with cost factors outweighing environmental factors here.

MALINAUSKAS: No, no, [indistinct] time, no, the environmental considerations are [indistinct].